He was singing “Hello, my baby,” but he stopped.

“It’s an ichneumon,” he answered. That nettled me.

“Anything like a cockatoo?” I asked.

“You’re a low-bred cur,” he screamed, “an ignorant mongrel. You shouldn’t seek information. What you want is a ticket for the Dogs’ Home. Help! Help!”

“Why, you hook-nosed nut-cracker, what’s the good of telling anybody that a mongoose is an ichneumon? How would you like it if I said you were a zygodactyl?”

He nearly had a fit. His language brought Evangeline from the attic: she thought the house was on fire. The fact is, Minkie dug that word out of the dictionary, and I’ve been waiting for an opportunity to hand it on to Polly; now he has had it, fair between the eyes.

I heard afterwards that if affairs were lively at Holly Lodge it was not all peace and goodwill to men at the parish church. Grampus had an attack of gout—a day earlier than usual—so Jack went to Christmas service [Pg 59]alone. He winked twice at Minkie, but she gazed at him steadily with the only eye he could see. Dolly was entirely taken up with her prayer-book, so Jack took careful stock of the red-haired man with the map of Judea in his face. But a captain of hussars who has won the D. S. O. has no reason to be ashamed of being alive, so, when our people came through the lych gate, there was Captain Stanhope with his hat off, smiling quite pleasantly, and wishing them the compliments of the season.

[Pg 59]

Of course, Mam and the Guv’nor, being gentlefolk, had to respond. Schwartz made to walk on with Dolly, but she stopped, too, and Minkie shook hands with Jack first of anybody.

The old man was hardly comfortable; he nudged Mam’s arm, and they would have joined Schwartz if Jack hadn’t said:

“By the way, Mr. Grosvenor, I want to have a chat with you on a matter of some importance. Can you spare me a few minutes now, or shall I call later in the day?”

Dolly blushed, and her father saw it. He [Pg 60]stiffened a bit, just as I do when my hair rises.

[Pg 60]

“I am sorry, Captain Stanhope, but I fear that any exchange of confidences between us will not only be useless but open to misinterpretation,” he said coldly.

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